Expo gives students hands-on experience with manufacturing careers

Wednesday

Oct 23, 2013 at 12:01 AMOct 23, 2013 at 10:21 PM

As students from Peoria Heights High School and El Paso-Gridly High School walked on a tour around Illinois Valley Plastic, Gina Gorman, a teacher at Peoria Heights High School, got a friendly nudge from a former student. Austin Bulmer, who graduated from Peoria Heights in 2006, was catching up with his former teacher when he asked, “Why didn’t we have this when I was in high school?”

The tour of Illinois Valley Plastic, 300 N. Cummings Lane, Washington, was one of many around the area for participating high schools with the Discover Manufacturing Career Expo, held from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Peoria Civic Center.

Robert Connelly

As students from Peoria Heights High School and El Paso-Gridly High School walked on a tour around Illinois Valley Plastic, Gina Gorman, a teacher at Peoria Heights High School, got a friendly nudge from a former student. Austin Bulmer, who graduated from Peoria Heights in 2006, was catching up with his former teacher when he asked, “Why didn’t we have this when I was in high school?”

The tour of Illinois Valley Plastic, 300 N. Cummings Lane, Washington, was one of many around the area for participating high schools with the Discover Manufacturing Career Expo, held from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Peoria Civic Center.

Nick Scibone, Human Resources Manager for IVP, says one of the main ideas behind the Expo is that manufacturing is not limited to what people typically associate with the field: metal work and welding. “Not everyone is an hourly employee out of a shop; we have accountants and engineers and HR people, production planners, and buyers.”

This year marks the third installment of the expo, boasting up to about 1,300 students, up 200 from last year, as well as moving to a bigger space at the Civic Center.

John Smith, who has been teaching industrial tech classes at Peoria Heights for 27 years, likes the expo in the second year of the school’s participation. “It gives them so many different options instead of pushing college all the time,” Smith, 51, of Peoria Heights, said.

He added that with a manufacturing job, his students can get a certificate or be hands-on as opposed to a more traditional route with a four-year college. He also liked that his students were able to see a plastic manufacturing shop as opposed to the traditional metal welding shop last year, showing them two different aspects of the industry.

Peoria Heights senior Cameron Courson says he is still going to go to college first, even acknowledging that people can make more money out of high school in manufacturing. He is deciding between engineering and real estate as his focus in college. “I just want to learn more about this type of field.”

At the Civic Center, students had hands-on experience, like a Caterpillar assembly line simulation, talking with Bradley University students about building racing vehicles in their engineering program, and talking with area manufacturing businesses.

Spencer Williams, 23, of Manito, is a senior at Bradley and is currently building a car for competition at the end of the school year. Williams was not able to experience an event like the expo while he was in high school.

“I didn’t see anything like this until going to Bradley.” He points to the idea of building a car from scratch every year with a $10,000 budget as what pulled him to Bradley.

“It takes it out of the textbook...they can come and see what a modern facility looks like,” Steffen said. She added that students being able to walk the shop floors in tours has been huge for the event and helps instill in the students that manufacturing is a more technological field now.

Robert Connelly can be reached at rconnelly@pjstar.com or 686-3251. Follow him on Twitter @RConnelly_PJS.